We all expected Boston to be among the best teams in the Eastern Conference, but few could have predicted just how dominant this Celtics team would be. The C’s sit high atop the standings, with the dreaded Cavaliers still in the rear view mirror. It’s too early to gawk at pole position, but for now, Boston is the class of the conference.

All that said, the East isn’t the schlep it has been in recent memory. And in the team’s recent loss to Chicago, we saw a glimpse at a very different sort of club.

There’s more than a handful of teams that can give the Celtics a run for their money. As the season matures, it’s worth knowing who’s who in the neighborhood.

Familiar Foes

Everything in the East still revolves around the Cavaliers, but Boston’s tier-two rivals in the East are just as potent as they were last season. Led by elite stars, Washington, Toronto, and Milwaukee comprise a trio of clubs that the Celtics need to take very seriously.

Toronto is perhaps the most worrisome. Not only are Kyle Lowry and DeMar DeRozan as crafty and troublesome as ever, but the Raptors youth movement gives the team a newfound level of depth. At the time of this writing, Toronto’s bench is turning in 40.6 points per game and leads the league with a 4.7 +/-.

Suddenly, the Raptors have varied their offense beyond iso drives and mid-range jumpers. The team also boasts the second best defensive rating in the conference. Dwane Casey’s club is maybe as balanced as its ever been and, although Boston is 1-0 against Toronto, it’s fair to expect this team to be a real threat through the season.

Two other teams should give the Celtics a fair fight in future tilts, although both have had their struggles. The Washington Wizards and Milwaukee Bucks each have issues to sort out, no doubt. The Bucks look like they’ve already turned things in the right direction. In a league where star-power is a rare and powerful resource, the likes of John Wall and Giannis Antetokounmpo are quite formidable, no matter how they look on a given day. From a coaching and depth stand-point, neither team looks ready to really go toe-to-toe with Boston, but given their respective All Star leaders, Washington and Milwaukee deserve a healthy amount of respect.

With just Milwaukee’s improvement, the top shelf of the East is a little more crowded than it was a season ago. A few new rising powers are why the East is seemingly much improved, and why the Celtics will have a full fight all season long.

The Unknowns

Two intriguing clubs that have shown promise in the 2017-18 campaign share a common theme. They both have impressively talented big men, challenging the convictions of a league obsessed with small ball.

The Detroit Pistons and Andre Drummond are one of the season’s biggest surprises, despite a recent run of poor performances. Drummond has made multiple leaps in becoming a more reliable free throw shooter and complimentary offensive weapon. With the addition of old friend Avery Bradley and the growth of Tobias Harris, Stan Van Gundy’s team seems to have the right stuff to compete with the best of the best. Drummond’s interior game has been, and will be, an issue for the Celtics. At the same time, Detroit is one of the NBA’s most prolific three-point shooting threats.

The Celtics did earn a rather decisive victory of the Pistons just a few nights ago, but it’s still a team to be weary of.

While Detroit is riding a wave of veterans peaking at the right time, another team in the East has surged on the wings of youth and promise. It’s fitting that the 76ers’ Twitter hashtag is “Here They Come.” Because after years of Processing, Philadelphia is right in the mix.

It’s unclear how sustainable Philly’s early success is, and the team isn’t without faults. Joel Embiid has the right stuff to expose a thin Celtics frontline, and rookie Ben Simmons seems to leave teams with more questions than answers. The postseason would be an entirely new challenge for such a young team, but the Sixers are still an imposing team in the East.

Because it’s never too soon to focus on the playoffs, it’s worth mentioning the Indiana Pacers and Miami Heat as worrisome foes for Boston, too.

Miami is well-coached, and has a roster of established talents. On any given night, the Heat can quickly become a real problem even for the NBA’s best. Indiana is a bit more of an unknown, but led by Victor Oladipo’s impressive play, the Pacers too are worth keeping an eye on. They’re the darling of the Association, and perhaps a team that could give Boston issues in a future first-round playoff series.

At the moment, it’s looking like a nine team race for eight playoff spots. Stunningly the last of those teams is the New York Knicks. Picked by many to challenge Chicago at the bottom of the standings, Kristaps Porzingis has elevated his game to lift New York to .500 and into an early season tie with Philly and Miami. The Unicorn is part of Jeff Hornacek’s bully-ball strategy, playing PF alongside three rotating traditional centers in Enes Kanter, Kyle O’Quinn, and Willy Hernangomez.

With Drummond, Embiid, Myles Turner, Hassan Whiteside, Porzingis, and Kanter battling for playoff positioning, the Celtics should plan on facing some serious size in Round 1.

To really understand Boston’s place in the conference, however, there’s always been a single standard bearer.

The White Whale

There’s no way around it. The East belongs to LeBron, and he has seven consecutive Conference banners to assert this claim. Until further notice, the Celtics will still need to measure themselves against the Cavaliers.

Yes, Cleveland’s early goings were a bit rocky. Injuries and an aging roster have taken their toll. But even in his 15th season, LeBron is playing like a man possessed. The King’s MVP-worthy performance thus far, along with a stabilized rotation, helped the Cavs run off 13-straight wins. With Isaiah Thomas’s return looming, the Cavs look to have put their problems in the past.

Boston’s next game against Cleveland is January 3rd in the Garden. It’s just regular season game, and the Cavs will be on the second night of a back-to-back. In the grand scheme of things, it shouldn’t mean much. Still, it may make for appointment TV for anyone still unsure of the pecking order in the Conference.

]]>http://www.celticshub.com/2017/12/12/sizing-eastern-conference-contenders/feed/0Celtics Goals, Wants, and Targets for the Start of Trade Seasonhttp://www.celticshub.com/2017/12/10/celtics-goals-wants-targets-start-trade-season/
http://www.celticshub.com/2017/12/10/celtics-goals-wants-targets-start-trade-season/#commentsSun, 10 Dec 2017 15:14:07 +0000http://www.celticshub.com/?p=63139The unofficial opening of NBA trade season is December 15 when the majority of players signed last offseason have their trade restrictions lifted. Most trades won’t happen until closer to the trade deadline, February 8, but historically there’s been a small uptick in trades around mid-December as that block of players become available and teams start to [...]

The unofficial opening of NBA trade season is December 15 when the majority of players signed last offseason have their trade restrictions lifted. Most trades won’t happen until closer to the trade deadline, February 8, but historically there’s been a small uptick in trades around mid-December as that block of players become available and teams start to make decisions about their direction after 25-30 games have been played.

In the past, when the trade deadline was later in February, there would be a window just after December 15 when not only would the tradable player pool increase but teams could acquire players and still clear the two month block on re-trading them in certain types of trades. With the deadline moved up, players traded to over-the-cap teams will not be able to be re-traded this season if their salary is combined with anyone else’s in the proposed future deal.

The Celtics have a history of being very active in the trade market, but this season the team is deep and balanced with fewer clear holes to fill. Still, Trade Danny will certainly be making and taking plenty of calls.

Team Goals and Limitations

Barring a shocking change in the availability of Anthony Davis, the Celtics will not be going over the luxury tax this season. They’re currently almost $9M under that line so they have a good bit of room to work with, but it needs to be remembered for some of the wilder ideas that can be constructed. The problem is not the cost this season if they were to land just over the line, it’s that the expectation is that they’ll be a tax team starting next season and then for the foreseeable future, so they will not want to start the clock on reaching the repeater status that carries heavier penalties.

Boston’s payroll is currently well under control but they have the talent of a much more expensive team and eventually that catches up with you. Kyrie Irving will be making $30+M starting two seasons from now. There are also a procession of rookie scale deals that will expire, all resulting in substantial raises if the team is able to keep the group together. For that reason, long term cost-controlled assets, either in the form of young players or draft picks, remain important. Two seasons from now, with no major changes, the team will have $95M committed to just Irving, Gordon Hayward, and Al Horford. Teams can’t sustain that type of top-end spending without small salaries filling the bench.

It’s obviously not all about money, though. The team currently sits atop the Eastern Conference and are favorites, by some measures, to make the Finals. However, they’ve dropped to fourth in the league in point differential, a better indication of actual team quality. Golden State and Houston are far ahead, Toronto’s recent surge has them up to fourth, and Cleveland and San Antonio are behind the Celtics but many people would make both of those squads playoff favorites over Boston.

An honest assessment of this team is that they’re very good and have a decent chance to advance further than last season, but are long shots to win the whole thing. Different people will draw different conclusions from that. Some will say that it means the Celtics should be aggressive in trying to improve the team right now. Others would preach patience with what looks like a long window of contention ahead.

If the team does look to bolster the roster, the obvious needs are shooting and playmaking. A healthy Gordon Hayward would go a long way towards solving both problems so these are not long-term issues, but for now they are. Former Celtic Kelly Olynyk would be a great fit for this season but he’s gone, not available, and now too expensive.

Brad Stevens’s teams are generally known for their ball movement but this year the C’s are middle of the pack in terms of percentage of field goals that are assisted. Kyrie Irving leads the team in AST% but isn’t in the top-20 in the league and has seen his rate steadily fall as the season has gone on. Marcus Smart and Al Horford are the only other Celtics with “playmaking” games and neither of them have a particularly good AST/TOV ratio. Both of their other nominal PGs, Terry Rozier and Shane Larkin, are more of scorers than facilitators.

The Celtics’ four primary starters are all having great shooting seasons but no other healthy players are above average. The offense clearly bogs down when the bench is in and, while they stay afloat with a fierce defense, they could use a floor spacer to loosen things up. The defense has been so good because there is no obvious weak link so they would need to be careful in making the wrong type of shooting addition.

After years of fans clamoring for size and rim protection, this year’s group has plenty of that with Aron Baynes and Daniel Theis. However, Baynes will be a free agent again after this season and Theis only has one more year on his deal (followed by restricted free agency). It’s conceivable that they could be interested in acquiring a low cost third option for next season if they think that Theis could be elevated to their primary “true center” and Baynes could be bid adieu to control costs.

Finally, a persistent “problem” for this franchise has been not having any semi-bad salaries that can grease the wheels in trades. If Boston does find another major trade in the near future, it will be hard to match up with a big salary. For that reason, if they can find a slightly bad, medium sized, medium length contract they might actually want it. The other salary cap and tax considerations come first, but having an $8M deal on the books that other teams would be agnostic about taking in a trade wouldn’t be a terrible thing.

Boston has an open NBA roster spot and both of their Two-way slots filled.

Tools of the for Trade

Boston holds a Designated Player Exception that could be used in a variety of ways that were covered in a previous post.

They don’t have a single contract that I would consider “bad,” though some are obviously more valuable than others. Irving and Hayward aren’t going anywhere. Horford isn’t moving during this season, though the front office is still hoping that Anthony Davis does become available at some future time and with the current roster he’d almost have to be included somehow in that. Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum are also untouchable for anyone short of a superstar.

Ojeleye and Theis could be moved but those small contracts are more valuable to Boston than they would be to most other teams. If you were to trade either you’d immediately be looking for someone else making a small salary to fill their role, so what would be the point of doing it? Marcus Smart is playing a major role on the team and we’ve seen in recent seasons how small the trade return is for pending restricted free agents who aren’t obvious max players.

That leaves a shorter list of players who seem more likely to be discussed than others. Marcus Morris’s team friendly deal extending one more season is the most obvious target. His role disappears as Hayward returns and they won’t be able to afford re-signing him. If this team were closer to .500 it would be an easy call to move him. If they continue to look like Finals contenders for the next two months, his value in defending LeBron James (and, Basketball God willing, Kevin Durant) is probably worth more to Boston than the marginal value in trading him this year instead of in the offseason.

Terry Rozier is joked about as an untouchable but it’s possible that they could discuss packages that include him. Guerschon Yabusele is very much an “eye of the beholder” player at the moment, but he has the type of contract that could move. I doubt Aron Baynes is going anywhere, but with Theis proving a viable NBA contributor I could imagine trades where they look to swap out Baynes for a stretchier big man. Abdel Nader could be used to acquire a low salary veteran who isn’t on the minimum exception (and so has to be salary matched). If Jabari Bird or Kadeem Allen catch a team’s eye they could be traded, but not if either is converted to a full NBA contract because there is then a three month waiting period.

Boston own all of their own future 1st round picks. Their next two 2nd round picks are both owed to other teams if they finish in the top five teams. That looks pretty likely this year, which would make you think it’s also pretty likely next year. Their 2nd rounders have very little value and they don’t own anyone else’s.

They do hold the famed LaKings pick that would convey this season if the Lakers pick falls between 2-5 or roll over to 2019 where it would be the better of the Kings of Sixers pick, unless it’s #1 in which case the worse pick. Again, unless Anthony Davis magically becomes available they are not including this in an in-season trade. Their future Memphis pick (top 8 protected 2019, top-6 in 2020, unprotected in 2021) would only be moved for a very good return. Their future Clippers pick could be a mid-round 1st in 2019 or 2020, but if they continue their slide back into obscurity and pick in the lottery for those two years it converts into only a 2022 2nd rounder. If they were to trade a 1st (or possible 1st) for a rental player, this would be the most likely one to go.

Potential Targets

Playing the trade game was more fun (or at least easier) when everyone had salary flexibility and the Celtics had multiple holes that they might want to fill. They currently don’t have many needs and have reason to be financially conservative, so the pickings are relatively slim. Writing that guarantees that they’ll actually make five trades, all for players not mentioned here.

Tyreke Evans | Memphis Grizzlies | 1 year / $3,290,000

The former Rookie of the Year and current leading candidate for Sixth Man of the Year has been one of the few bright spots on the Grizzlies. However, because he’s only signed to a one year deal and Memphis will be capped out unless they move one of Marc Gasol, Mike Conley, or Chandler Parsons (good luck), he might be pricing himself out of additional seasons. Without Bird Rights they would have to use their MLE to keep him but does it make any sense for a small market, non-playoff team to even want to retain a then 29 year old for mid-level money?

Evans has been a dismal shooter for most of his career but has been over 40% from 3PT for this season and last. He’s also a good passer and close enough to average as a defender to not hurt you. If the team does want to make a “get better” move, and don’t mind stunting the development of Terry Rozier, I think this would be a good match. He’d have to accept a smaller role than he has with the Grizz and Boston would have the same troubles in retaining him as Memphis does. However, he’d be on a better team and establishing a relationship with him would be an interesting fall back plan in case things don’t work out with re-signing Smart this summer.

The Celtics wouldn’t give Memphis back their future pick for half a season of a guy who had a weak market just a few months ago, but maybe they could give the Clippers pick with some additional wording where they get the Celtics own 2020 2nd if the Clips pick never conveys a 1st. Because this is the last season on his deal, Boston could use the DPE to take his contract.

Lou Williams | Los Angeles Clippers | 1 year / $7,000,000

You can make a very similar case for Williams as Evans. It’s not as clear that the Clippers wouldn’t be able to retain his services beyond this season, but it would seem prudent for them to cash out on him if they can. Unlike with Evans, a team acquiring Williams would also get his Bird Rights. That probably doesn’t make a huge difference for the Celtics because of their future budget challenges. He would fit into the DPE.

The reason to put Williams behind Evans is that his defense is much worse and he’s not as good of a passer. His track record as a shooter is much better than Evans’s, but this is a comparison of imperfect players so there’s going to be a trade-off either way.

J.J. Barea | Dallas Mavericks | 2 years / $7,614,750

Barea would be the poor man’s LouWill. He can’t go into the DPE because he has two seasons left, but you could find a player of similar salary who does (and costs nothing in trade), then flip that player with a 2nd round pick (or Nader, Bird, or Allen) for Barea. J.J. is the worst of the three on defense but he went to Northeastern, so there’s that.

Nemanja Bjelica | Minnesota Timberwolves | 1 year/ $3,949,999

The Serbian sniper is currently injured and a part of the T-wolves rotation when he’s not. I’ve made the case before for trying to swap Morris for Bjelica with the Celtics also getting an OKC pick that Minnesota owns. That picks looks too valuable now, but maybe they could work out some type of pick swap or a couple of seconds. Morris is worth more than Bjelica because of the extra year on his contract.

I think Morris could help with some of their defensive issues and Bjelica would give the Celtics’ second unit some scoring punch and spacing, at least. Boston’s willingness would probably come down to how helpful they think Marcus would be in guarding LeBron in the playoffs. Minnesota would have to assess if their already shooting starved group could sacrifice spot-up shooting for a defender with the exact wrong shot profile for what they need.

Luke Babbit | Atlanta Hawks | 1 year / $1,974,159

Another bench shooter… he would be easier to get than Bjelica because the Hawks aren’t going anywhere this year. He’s signed to a minimum exception contract so Boston could take him into their open roster spot without even using the DPE. Would Atlanta just give him to Boston for their 2nd round pick if it doesn’t land 55-60 (or maybe the same but for 2019)? Could they swap Kadeem Allen for him? Probably not, but the price shouldn’t be much more than that.

Ersan Ilyasova / Marco Belinelli

These are also Hawks players on expiring contracts who can shoot but not really defend. They have a less obvious connection to Rain Man than Luke Babbit, though.

That joke brought to you by the Simmons-tron 2000. The Simmons-tron 2000, for all your 80’s movie reference needs.

Aaron Gordon / Julius Randle

A different way to play this market could just be to buy low on restricted free agents, like Dallas did last season on Nerlens Noel.

If Orlando come to the decision over the next few months that they’re stuck in the wrong part of the standings and Jonathan Isaac plays the same position as Gordon and they don’t actually want to pay the Vice Dunk Champion $20+M/year, they could look to cash out. Boston would have a hard time retaining him within a reasonable budget, but if they, in turn, want out of the Marcus Smart market then that would open a salary slot for Gordon. He could also be the type of contract that potentially becomes the “Victor Oladipo” part of of the Paul George trade, only for Anthony Davis. Also, Boston could look a few years down the line of NBA trends and think that maybe he’s not a PF who was stuck playing SF but a C who was playing PF who was stuck playing SF.

Randle is a slightly different proposition, as the Lakers would have to let him go if they hit a grand slam in free agency. They’re likely trying to attach him to Luol Deng as value for someone eating that contract. Boston wouldn’t/couldn’t do that. He’s also not the type of player that Brad Stevens wants, being a very traditional style power forward. Still, at some low price it could become worth it. It would be weird trading with the Lakers.

Nerlens Noel | Dallas Mavericks | 1 year / $4,187,599

If I don’t mention the Massachusetts native someone will ask why I didn’t mention him. He’s been cast off by one team and marginalized by a second. He’s injured. His flashy block and steal numbers from his first two seasons in Philadelphia have slid. He can’t shoot and doesn’t pass. If the Celtics suffer an injury to Baynes or Theis between now and the deadline and you can have Noel basically for free, I could see that making sense.

He has a no-trade clause, which might be part of why Dallas has made things miserable for him. If a team trades for him, they do not get his full Bird Rights but instead get weaker Non-Bird Rights that might not be enough to keep him if he gets rejuvenated.

Vince Carter / Nik Stauskas

If you see the Celtics trade for a player like this, it’s because they want to use the DPE to acquire a player with multiple years left on their deal and are doing that by picking up a DPE-elgibile contract that they can get for functionally nothing so they can then flip that player for the one they really want.

Anthony Davis | New Orleans Pelicans | 3 years / $76,302,788

If you landed on this page because you searched “Celtics Anthony Davis trade” then I’m sorry.

]]>http://www.celticshub.com/2017/12/10/celtics-goals-wants-targets-start-trade-season/feed/1Manu Ginobli lifts San Antonio past Bostonhttp://www.celticshub.com/2017/12/09/manu-ginobli-lifts-san-antonio-past-boston/
http://www.celticshub.com/2017/12/09/manu-ginobli-lifts-san-antonio-past-boston/#commentsSat, 09 Dec 2017 16:35:22 +0000http://www.celticshub.com/?p=63132Sometimes two great teams match up and unfortunately, one has to lose. That’s what happened last night to the Boston Celtics, who fell in San Antonio 105-102. Kyrie Irving was inches from tying it up at the horn but his corner triple rimmed out, securing the victory for the Spurs. The Celtics offense faltered down [...]

]]>Sometimes two great teams match up and unfortunately, one has to lose. That’s what happened last night to the Boston Celtics, who fell in San Antonio 105-102. Kyrie Irving was inches from tying it up at the horn but his corner triple rimmed out, securing the victory for the Spurs.

The Celtics offense faltered down the stretch as they scored just 20 points in the final quarter. Meanwhile, San Antonio took advantage of big nights from LaMarcus Aldridge and Pau Gasol, who both finished with double-doubles.

Boston falls to 22-5 with the loss while San Antonio improves to 18-8. Thankfully, Cleveland also lost last night, so the C’s still lead the East by 3.5 games.

Celtics

Kyrie Irving is one of the most deadly offensive weapons in the league. He finished with 36 points on 13/21 (6/10 3PT) shooting, including a 17 point first-quarter. It was another ridiculous scoring night for Irving in his last game wearing the mask. He only had one assist in the game but it felt like he was mostly playing within the flow of the offense.

Irving knocked down four triples in the first quarter and six overall, the most he’s made thus far in a Celtics jersey.

The rookie is coming alive. Jayson Tatum put up 20 points, 8 rebounds, and 2 steals while looking extremely comfortable on offense against San Antonio. Unfortunately, he actually decreased his league-leading three-point percentage to 51.8% after ONLY making 2/4 of his shots from deep.

Goggles Jaylen might be the new masked Kyrie. He finished with 15 points and 5 rebounds on 7/10 (70%) shooting from the field. Brown also threw down a couple of ridiculous dunks, including a put-back off an offensive rebound over Gasol.

Al Horford was held to a season-low 2 points on 1/6 (16.6%) shooting. He just couldn’t get much going offensively as he used up most of his energy defending Aldridge, and we see how that turned out. He still was able to haul down 9 rebounds and dish out 3 assists.

The Celtics bench struggled in this one. They finished a combined 10/33 (30.3%) from the field and 2/18 (11.1%) from deep.

Boston and San Antonio are now tied for the number one defense in the league, allowing just 97.5 points per game. The Celtics are the only team in the East holding teams to under 100 points per game.

Spurs

Are you sure he’s 40? Manu Ginobili only made three shots all night, and two were crucial in getting San Antonio past Boston. He drilled a buzzer-beating three to give the Spurs their first lead at the break. Then, Ginobili made a rainbow triple over Horford with just five seconds left in the fourth quarter for the win.

LaMarcus Aldridge dominated whoever the Celtics threw at him on Friday night. He finished with 27 points and 10 rebounds while knocking down 11 of his 20 shots from the floor. It was frustrating to see him continuously pull down rebounds in traffic and put them back in for easy points.

Pau Gasol is still hanging around. He recorded 14 points and 11 rebounds and knocked down a couple of shots from mid-range.

Bryn Forbes played the majority of Danny Green’s minute after Green suffered an injury. Forbes finished a game-high +21 in 35 minutes.

]]>http://www.celticshub.com/2017/12/09/manu-ginobli-lifts-san-antonio-past-boston/feed/1What Can The Celtics Learn From a Half-Decade of Trade Wins?http://www.celticshub.com/2017/12/08/can-celtics-learn-half-decade-trade-wins/
http://www.celticshub.com/2017/12/08/can-celtics-learn-half-decade-trade-wins/#commentsFri, 08 Dec 2017 14:08:20 +0000http://www.celticshub.com/?p=63107Things are going well for the Boston Celtics. I would say that they are “lucky” but… The Celtics have enjoyed organizational success under Danny Ainge long enough that attributing it all to luck seems a bit ignorant at this point. There’s no easy way to draw a parallel between a symbol of good fortune and [...]

]]>Things are going well for the Boston Celtics. I would say that they are “lucky” but…

The Celtics have enjoyed organizational success under Danny Ainge long enough that attributing it all to luck seems a bit ignorant at this point.

There’s no easy way to draw a parallel between a symbol of good fortune and the Boston Celtics. Absolutely zero iconography to draw from or reference in the team’s aesthetic. It’s a nightmare for bloggers like us. Hmmm… I’ll keep thinking. Maybe something will come to me.

The Boston Celtics mascot whose name I’m blanking on at the moment.

It’s looking more and more like the Celtics have ‘won’ nearly every trade that they have been a part of over the past five years, and a lot of that has to do with the Celtics front office.

However, it also has to do with where the Celtics have been negotiating from; they had until recently been selling in a seller’s market. Over the past few season, the Celtics have only been viewed as the “buyers” in the Isaiah Thomas and Kyrie Irving trades. Basketball players and situations are unique, so a buying team cannot “go elsewhere” for that specific asset. No one else has it. On the other hand, a team seeking simply “value” for an asset can piece that value together in a lot of ways, and will often have options to choose from if they are patient and diligent.

Danny Ainge is good at setting the parameters. We’ve got more than enough data for that. But the C’s are entering a point in a team’s life cycle when there will be increased pressure on them to force the issue in the trade market. Last year, many Celtics fans bemoaned Ainge’s resistance to trading for additional help like P.J. Tucker or Serge Ibaka. This year, with a young core, a spot at the top of East, and stocked pick cupboard, that volume will only get louder.

It’s common knowledge in NBA circles that once a “window” is open, teams should “go for it.” If the NBA title race is one of Dom Toretto’s drag races, then isn’t refusing to deal future picks for further upgrades like refusing to use a Nos boost? It just makes perfect sense to go all out. Except…

Well, except that’s exactly how the Celtics came to sit on their trove of plunder in the first place. By exploiting teams who felt that they had “a window” and needed to pay any price in order to augment themselves as powerfully as possible. Most of the time, the Celtics were catching these teams at the end of a chain of compounding moves, bound by the constraints of the Stepien Rule (generally, a team must have a 1st round draft selection at least once every two years) but devoid of assets to pay for the short term bolster they desired. To demonstrate what I mean, I’ll walk through the asset paths and decisions of front offices who have traded the Celtics first round picks since they commenced their rebuild in 2013.

The 2016 Mavs Pick (The Rondo Trade)

I’ll start with the Mavs electing to deal at 2016 first rounder in order to acquire Rajon Rondo, because, at the time of the deal, this was probably the pick that had the least time between when the pick was traded and when it was conveyed. The Mavericks were facing a conundrum, partially because of the insistence of Mark Cuban to commit to competing for as long as Dirk Nowitzki remained on the team.

In 2012, the Mavs traded back, dealing the rights to Tyler Zeller to the Cavs in exchange for a wider selection of Jared Cunningham, Bernard James, and… Jae Crowder. Cunningham, like a lot of rookies under Rick Carlisle, struggled to see the floor and was dumped on the Hawks to create Dwight Howard cap space during the 2013 draft. He was traded along with BeBe Nogueira and Mike Muscala in exchange for… Shane Larkin. The Mavs traded their 2014 first round draft pick in 2011 to acquire Lamar Odom and they dealt Larkin in a package to Knicks in order to reacquire Tyson Chandler.

All these moves added up to the staggering fact that the Mavericks entered the 2014-15 season with no first round picks on rookie scale contracts. For some context, one third of the Celtics current roster are first round picks on rookie scale contracts. Because the Mavs had spent their cap room on luring Chandler Parsons into a club and away from the Rockets in restricted free agency, they had few other ways to improve when it became clear that they did not have the firepower to hang with the rest of the West. Whiffing on Dwight Howard and Deron Williams (maybe actually good things in retrospect), and a near half decade of failing to develop/trading young players left the Mavs with an aging, expensive roster that cost a lot of money.

When paired with an ownership mandate to “win-now” this was a bad situation and the Mavs elected to continue to dip into future picks in order to increase their current team variance

Because the Stepien rule does not apply to selections that have been made already, (i.e. a team can always trade the pick they have upcoming in that year’s draft provided they do not owe the pick two drafts away) the Mavs actually traded their 2015 pick to the Celtics. However, the pick had reverse protections for the “bottom 15” and the obligation rolled over to 2016 when the Celtics used the pick to select and stash Guerschon Yabusele. The Mavericks then used their pick in 2015 to select Justin Anderson, who was later traded to the Sixers with two second round picks to acquire Nerlens Noel.

Noel has since taken the qualifying offer and will be an unrestricted free agent in 2018.

The Mavericks seem to have a winner in Dennis Smith Jr., but perhaps following along with their patterns of pick spending since the honeymoon of their title run can teach Celtics fans a little bit about why it’s important to use those picks wisely. The Mavs got unprecedented buy-in from Dirk, who took a suspiciously large paycut in order to help Dallas with their free agent aspirations. However, even when considering the bad health luck of Parsons or the bizarre emoji bonanza that was the DeAndre Jordan saga, it’s tough to see where the Mavs thought they would get the depth and young talent that contenders still need.

Look up and down really good teams of the past decade and you’ll find at least one late-first or early second round steal who ties things together. Mario Chalmers, young Jimmy Butler, OKC Reggie Jackson, Corey Joseph, Lance Stephenson, Rajon Rondo and even Draymond Green are all examples of players who were important to a conference finalist teams while they were still on their rookie deals. The closest the Mavs came to developing an impact player during the time frame covered was Jae Crowder, who was sent out in the Rondo deal.

So this begs the question, where the Mavs wrong to send out as many 1st round picks as they did? I anticipate most of you will say ‘yes’ and I certainly lean that way, but it’s tough to definitively say. Simply stating “the Mavs are incapable of developing players” isn’t fair, because it ignores the work they’ve done with guys like Yogi Ferrell and Dwight Powell. Mark Cuban said he wanted to win while Dirk was there, so the Mavs did their best to make that happen. It’s unlikely Larkin or Anderson would have developed enough in time to meaningfully contribute to a Nowitzki led contender, so can you really fault their management for warping things to fit an owner’s request?

Put a bookmark there. Notice when digesting the logic for why a team did what it did, I referenced a need to win with aging core, an ownership directive to move forward with that, and limited options to accomplish that beyond future mortgages. Keep that in mind and we’ll move on.

The 2019/2020 Grizzlies pick (The Jeff Green Trade)

When discussing how the Grizzlies put together the best era in the history of their franchise, it’s important to remember one thing: Of the Grit-&-Grind cornerstones, only Mike Conley was drafted by Memphis. The Grizz FO likely saw something in Marc Gasol and they deserve credit for asking for him in the Pau Gasol trade, but Grindfather Tony Allen was acquired on a reasonable 3 year, 9 million deal in 2010 and Zach Randolph (then “trouble player Zach Randolph”) was robbed from the Clippers for Quentin Richardson in 2009. Since drafting Conley, here is a decade of Chris Wallace’s work in the first round.

The Lakers pick from the Pau Gasol deal is shuffled around for what ends up being Darrell Arthur.

2009

The Grizzlies draft Hasheem Thabeet #2 overall; three of the next seven selections are James Harden, Steph Curry, and DeMar DeRozan.

The Grizzlies acquired the 27th pick in the draft by trading Kyle Lowry to the Rockets (developing players matters!) and draft Demarre Carroll (oh, that’s good!). Carroll was later packaged with Hasheem Thabeet to acquire Shane Battier for 23 games. (That’s less good!)

2010

The Grizzlies select Xavier Henry 12th. This is less bad than it seems as there were only a few impact players left at that point like Eric Bledsoe, Larry Sanders, Hassan Whiteside (who will wash out of the league for a bit) and Avery Bradley.

The Grizzlies select Greivis Vasquez with the 28th pick they received from the Lakers, closing the book on the Pau Gasol Trade.

The Grizzlies sell the draft rights to 25th pick Dominique Jones (acquired from the Nuggets for eating Steven Hunter’s contract) to the Mavericks. Again, this sounds worse than it probably was given talent remaining, but still not great.

2011

Memphis previously traded what would be the 20th pick in a 2010 deal to get Ronnie Brewer. Brewer would play five total games for the Grizzlies.

2012

The Grizzlies select Tony Wroten 25th overall. Memphis would dump him on the Sixers in 2013 in exchanged for a top 50 second round pick that did not convey (nothing).

2013

As previously mentioned, the Grizzlies traded Carroll and Thabeet and what would be the 26th pick for 23 games of Shane Battier. Rudy Gobert would be drafted 27th.

2014

Selected Jordan Adams 22nd overall. Adams suffered knee problems throughout his career and had a difficult time staying on the floor. The Grizzlies would waive him in 2016.

2015

The Grizzlies selected Jarrell Martin 25th overall. Martin is still on the roster and has been a rotation player for the Grizzlies this year even starting 12 games, despite being told at one point in preseason that he’d be released.

2016

Drafted Wade Baldwin 17th overall. Baldwin was waived by the Grizzlies in October.

2017

This Grizzlies pick (which ended up 20th overall) was traded to the Cavs alongside Marreesse Speights, Josh Selby, and Wayne Ellington for Jon Leuer in 2013. It would eventually go the Kings and become Harry Giles.

Yikes, makes you pretty grateful for Danny Ainge, huh?

I rehash this malpractice, because I want to point out that these were the circumstances that Grizzlies were operating when they made the Jeff Green deal in 2015. The Grizzlies were aching for help to put around their four touchstones, and Rudy Gay-trade-castoff Tayshaun Prince was not helping their floor spacing enough. The Leuer trade has happened. It’s a sunk cost. They were still going to owe a pick no matter what. So the thinking at that point is, “why not?”

This was the most successful team in Grizzlies history. It was a particularly beloved squad that was embraced by the community. Keeping a pick, and a distant one at that, risked angering a fan base that wanted to see this particular group of guys do well. Also, it’s not like Grizzlies fans were ignorant as to what the risk would be. Most knew full well how horribly the trade could backfire, if it didn’t work out. It was just that the Grizzlies were out of options and running the risk of something horrible happening seemed worth it. GrizzlyBearBlues.com recapped the trade in 2016 and (acurately and reasonably) summarized the sentiment like this…

“They did what they thought they had to do. It just didn’t work out.”

Okay, second bookmark. Aging core… A need to win… Limited options to improvement without a mortgage. You get it. Let’s move on.

The Nets Haul – The Paul Pierce/Kevin Garnett trade

Weird that someone buying a team in order to build an arena ended badly for said team.

The details have been beaten to death already. One of the most lopsided trades in NBA history. The Celtics will end the trade with Jaylen Brown, Jayson Tatum, most of what brought Kyrie Irving to Boston, and some outstanding Lakers or Kings pick. That’s good work.

What might not be clear is exactly how the Nets ended up at that 2013 draft night call. Let’s start with 2008. The Nets were purchased in 2004 by Brett Ratner as a vehicle to develop land. Ratner’s end game was to build what would become the Barclays Center and purchasing the Nets would give him the political cover and public subsidies he needed to get his project done. The goal was always going to be to get someone to purchase the team, and Ratner was able to sell controlling interest to Mikhail Prokhorov in 2009. In a prequel to Russian oligarchs seemingly collapsing American institutions, the subsequent deals that the Nets FO made would reek of a team desperate to improve. The Nets were thirsty and they needed to slide into the DMs of a superstar. So they went creeping around the league.The Nets had drafted the disappointing Terrance Williams in 2009, but later acquired the promising Derrick Favors in 2010. The Favors pick was their first one in the high lottery since taking Kenyon Martin 1st overall in 2000. (Eddie Griffin was drafted 7th with the Nets pick but it was traded to Houston). Armed with two great big man prospects in Favors and Brook Lopez, the Nets seemed poised for a slow but steady rebuild that could reap a solid, developing squad by the time the team landed in Brooklyn.Then, in February of 2011, the Nets sent out two first round picks, rookie Derrick Favors and Devin Harris to acquire Deron Williams.

Williams had a year and half left on his current contract, and I have the feeling that had the trade happened 4 years later (but with all the players at the same age, point in their development, and contract status), it would have been more panned. The Nets had little beyond Brook Lopez to pair with Williams, and giving up cost controlled assets such as Favors, their own (almost certainly high) 2012 pick, and a Warriors 2013 pick in order to accelerate their own rebuild seemed… ill-advised.

A popular sports-opinion personality often says that trading “five quarters for a dollar” never works out for the team that is trading the ‘dollar’. In reality, the reason that the team is trading the dollar in the first place is often because it’s their last one and one dollar doesn’t buy much. It also doesn’t always work out for the team acquiring the “dollar bill.” Ask the Lakers about Dwight Howard and Steve Nash or, topically, the Nets about Deron Williams.

There’s a certain amount of bad luck that enters into this. Williams was often battling injuries and not long before the trade, there were legitimate debates as to whether Williams or Chris Paul was the better player. To totally ignore the context of the time and hammer the Nets with the benefit of hindsight is slightly unfair.

However, this was a bad team in a (at that point) below average market trading multiple top-3 selections for a player that would only be under contract for 15-16 more months. The clock was ticking and the specter of losing all that talent for nothing if Williams walked in free agency was looming. As a result, the franchise was dangling from a cliff in the days leading the trade deadline of 2012. The team was Williams and Brook Lopez and a bunch of nothing. The Nets were still abysmal and would almost certainly be picking in the top half of the lottery again. That pick likely wouldn’t do much to move the needle for a then 27-year-old D-Will, who was about to hit free agency.

It was then, feeling out of options and in a free agent death trap of their own making, that the Nets made the trade that really damaged their franchise.

They traded a Top-3 protected pick for the EXPIRING contract of Gerald Wallace. The fact that the pick became Damian Lillard is almost irrelevant, as that’s an awful trade regardless of context.

Now there was no going back for the Nets. Three top-6 picks had been sent out the door in the interest of fielding a Deron Williams led team beyond 2012. After swapping a mid-lottery pick for Wallace, the Nets would need to retain him at any cost or risk looking truly foolish (or at least more foolish). They would sign a declining Wallace to a then-massive 4-year $40M contract that was almost immediately an albatross.

Speaking of albatrosses, the Nets then finished pushing their chips into the middle of the table, sending Houston’s 2013 pick and swap rights to their 2015 pick to the Atlanta Hawks in exchange for Joe Johnson’s gargantuan deal, previously seen as untradable. The Nets were able to stave off Dallas, and retain Deron Williams, but the cost of doing so had already done tremendous damage to their flexibility as a franchise. After the Nets re-signed Lopez, to a 4-year $61 million dollar deal that same summer, they were left with no cap space on the horizon. Not an ideal situation for a team that many felt would not be good enough to even advance in the playoffs.

In their inaugural season in Brooklyn, this common prediction came true, and the Nets were bounced from the 2013 playoffs in the first round by a Joakim Noah-led Bulls squad.

This is the situation Billy King finds himself in. Ownership at least partly understands that this accelerated timeline that they have enacted has made things bad. This was the bed they made in 2011, when they traded for Williams. Ownership wanted to have a winning team with star power to open their public money subsidized palace. They bet big that he was a franchise star whom warping the franchise to accommodate would be worth the price. When the finished product of that Deron Williams-helmed team took flight in the playoffs, they tumbled from the nest and into the ground with particularly embarrassing splat.

Three top-six picks had been sent out to build this expensive roster. A pick swap with Atlanta was looming in 2015. The cross-town rival Knicks were enjoying a resurgence, and were looking to build off of season that saw them take the #2 seed in the East. Ownership was demanding a better playoff performance, but the Nets had no other options to serious improvement without reaching way into the back of draft pick coffers. Even then, any trade partner would need to be willing to take back the abominable Gerald Wallace contract and/or Kris Humphries gargantuan expiring deal. Not many teams would be willing to do that.

You know the rest.

So let’s pull out the score card. An aging core, limited options forward, an ownership dictated need to win… I’m starting to think there might be a pattern here!

So What Does This Have to Do with the 2017 Boston Celtics?

The short answer is “nothing, yet.”

However, as trade season unofficially opens next week the Celtics find themselves at the top of the conference, but still perceived as a cut below the Warriors, Rockets, and LeBrons of the world. Despite tremendous success in the face of early season adversity, they’ll be viewed by much of the media, and many fans, as clear “buyers.”

With assets and options that get you in the picture like the Disabled Player exception, Marcus Morris’s team friendly deal, and a set of low cost young contributors, you can expect to see the Celtics thrown into just as many fake trades as you did when they were pure sellers or a mid-tier enigma.

Trading picks means less rookies getting bullied into going to Fenway to try on Wally’s hat. A true lose-lose

The Celtics have all of their own first round picks and when the Lakers/Kings, Grizzlies, and possible Clippers picks are all taken into consideration, there’s a reasonable chance the Celtics will have seven first round selections in the next four years. Pair that with their current young crop of players and any mid-level signings they may make, and it’s very very unlikely the Celtics will have enough playing time, or even roster spots, for all those picks. This has already happened to the Celtics twice since the rebuild started, as they had to cut ties with former first round picks James Young and R.J. Hunter without the roster space or playing time to develop them.

So the answer is that the Celtics should make a trade, right? They’re playing like a 60-win team so the window is now!

I still advise that the Celtics tread lightly when it comes to dealing first round picks. The point of walking through that GM House of Horrors was to show how innocently a downturn for a franchise can start out. It often begins with a bad gamble on a “franchise talent,” a neglect of prospects and player development, or a handful of seemingly small overpays for short-term improvement.

Those trades aren’t what sunk those franchises, but they did put the franchises in position to be sunk.

Now, the Celtics are laughably far from any scenario that grim. Boston could afford to make a small roster addition with one of their picks in the next few years, as the roster crunch problem is very real.

If something bizarre happens and you can get Anthony Davis, wonderful. If you can supplement the roster or cover for an injury with just the DPE and a 2nd round pick, great. If you can flip a short-term player like Morris for someone who Brad Stevens thinks would be an improvement, go for it.

However, what takes a franchise from very good to elite is almost never an upper middle-class “go for it” trade. What transforms a team is a major free agent signing (no longer possible), a true blockbuster trade (still holding out hope), or hitting a half-court shot on a middling pick. The Clippers took Eric Gordon 7th in 2008, but 26 picks later they had a foundational piece of their big three in Deandre Jordan. Jimmy Butler extended the viability of the Bulls despite what should have been a franchise-killing rash of injuries. The Greek Freak has electrified Milwaukee. Kawhi Leonard has created the post-Duncan Spurs. Draymond Green’s selection transformed a good playoff team into a dynasty.

It’s very unlikely you get a player like that with those picks, but given how valuable that is, and how long the Celtics window for contention looks, wouldn’t you want as many cracks at that exact scenario as possible? There’s certainly a place where the price is right and it would be in the team’s best interest to flip a pick for some help, but it’s important to always be accurate in self evaluations and never catch “trade fever.”

Patience is a virtue; even more-so when it’s hard to be patient. You don’t want to be the team that gave up a pick, with Jimmy Butler on the board, for five games of Ronnie Brewer.

]]>http://www.celticshub.com/2017/12/08/can-celtics-learn-half-decade-trade-wins/feed/2NBA Player Salaries from 1991-2017http://www.celticshub.com/2017/12/07/nba-player-salaries-1991-2017/
http://www.celticshub.com/2017/12/07/nba-player-salaries-1991-2017/#respondThu, 07 Dec 2017 23:36:39 +0000http://www.celticshub.com/?p=63096Before I started writing at CelticsHub I was a moderator on Celtics Reddit and I became a moderator there because of my interest in the NBA salary cap and team building principles. As part of that, I built a salary cap website/tool at roster-builder.com. For four years (I recently disabled all but the [...]

]]>Before I started writing at CelticsHub I was a moderator on Celtics Reddit and I became a moderator there because of my interest in the NBA salary cap and team building principles. As part of that, I built a salary cap website/tool at roster-builder.com. For four years (I recently disabled all but the Celtics) I tried to catalog all active NBA contracts for use in that tool, so I know how much of a pain it can be to track that in a timely and accurate manner.

However, none of those people/sites have been great about maintaining easily accessible history tables, and if you go beyond a decade there is really only one source.

Patricia Bender’s eskimo.com repository contains text files of the salary information, primarily sourced from The Dallas Morning News, going back to 1991 (plus three years from the 80’s). These salary sheets have inconsistent formatting and conventions, some missing parts, some inaccuracies, and are not readily searchable or easy to manipulate. However, if you want to know how much [Player X] made, or [Team Y] spent, in any year before the most recent few, this was basically your only source short of a LexisNexis search or microfilm at the library.

A few weeks ago I was asked about historical salary information in a manipulatable form. For that, I went ahead with parsing out all Patricia’s text files and giving them a consistent format. With that, there is now a single Excel spreadsheet available (via DropBox and GoogleDocs) that has as complete a history of NBA player salaries as I can build, going back to 1990-91.

Notes:

Each season is a snapshot in time and, in many cases, that snapshot is some time in December of January, not the end of the season.

I’m certain that there are missing players in here, especially late season signing, 10-day contracts, early season cuts with guarantees, amnesty cuts, etc. If you have meaningful additions, you can send them to me on twitter @dangercart.

While the data doesn’t come 100% from Patricia Bender, if you use this data and are looking for one person to credit I would choose her.

The 2014-17 data is primarily from other websites like Basketball Insiders, Basketball-Reference, and ShamSports (which no longer has a salaries section).

The player names in this do not align directly to basketball-reference, though I am considering building a mapping table for that.

Players marked with a “Y” in [BelowMin] are likely partial season contracts, cuts, or stretched dead money.

]]>http://www.celticshub.com/2017/12/07/nba-player-salaries-1991-2017/feed/03 Up, 3 Down: Celtics vs. Buckshttp://www.celticshub.com/2017/12/04/3-3-celtics-vs-bucks/
http://www.celticshub.com/2017/12/04/3-3-celtics-vs-bucks/#respondTue, 05 Dec 2017 03:45:36 +0000http://www.celticshub.com/?p=63084The Celtics roll on with a 111-100 victory over the Milwaukee Bucks. Boston moves to 21-4 and are already starting to push teams pretty far back in the race to lock up home court in Round 1 of the playoffs. If the regular season checklist goes: playoffs -> home court -> 1-seed, the first two could [...]

]]>The Celtics roll on with a 111-100 victory over the Milwaukee Bucks. Boston moves to 21-4 and are already starting to push teams pretty far back in the race to lock up home court in Round 1 of the playoffs. If the regular season checklist goes: playoffs -> home court -> 1-seed, the first two could be functionally locked up by Christmas.

3 UP

Having a Balanced Team

If you just check the box score this game looks like a classic Giannis vs. Kyrie shootout. The Celtics really won this game by not having to rely entirely on Irving. Jayson Tatum jumped out to a very fast start with 16 early points on 4-4 threes before passing the baton to Kyrie and Al Horford in the second half. Aron Baynes also had a solid contribution in the opening half. Marcus Smart led the defense down the stretch. Terry Rozier and Daniel Theis chipped in with their normal contributions.

The Bucks don’t have the Celtics depth to lean on throughout the game. Giannis, Eric Bledsoe, and Kris Middleton all had their moments but that was about it. Even Tony Snell, who shot well and hit double-digits, did literally nothing else with no rebounds, assists, blocks, or steals. Malcolm Brogdon is a nice player but once you classify him as a 24 year old bench guard instead of a rookie starter his real level might emerge. This isn’t a secret, but they need Jabari Parker to come back and force everyone “down” one spot in the rotation.

Being a Freak

For all that the Celtics used their depth to establish a lead, it did eventually devolve into a showdown between two of the league’s athletic marvels.

The Greek Freak was unstoppable drawing a pile of fouls in the first quarter and then simply going to the rack for the rest of the night on his way to 40 and 9. The Celtics have a lot of answers on defense but maybe not one for Giannis. They were able to neutralize Ben Simmons, a theoretically similar player, by dropping and challenging at the rim, but Antetokounmpo just muscles up and dunks on you if he gets to that spot. The scary thing is that he has a lot of room for further growth because of the clear weaknessaes still in his game.

Kyrie doesn’t have the visible tools that Giannis is blessed with but he’s a freak in his own right. He showed off the best handle in the league and his preternatural gift for angles and touch in scoring 32 of his own. Both players took 24 FGAs but Gianni’s ability to get to the free throw line was the difference in their scoring outputs. When Boston needed a closer, Irving was there once again.

Al Horford

Boston’s do-it-all big man’s dip in form seems to have ended. After four consecutive single-digit scoring nights in mid-November he’s posted 20+ in three of the past five, and been in double digits for all five. A game after setting a career high with 11 assists he put up 20/9/8 while taking his shifts trying to contain Giannis.

Horford is what makes the team tick. When he’s engaged on both ends like this and getting a reasonable number of shots up the team almost always looks good. It’s possibly not a coincidence that his brief run of down games came shortly after he sustained a concussion. If that was playing a part and is no longer an issue, the Celtics should continue to control the Eastern Conference.

3 DOWN

Having Literally No Good Centers

The Bucks looked like an argument for having a real center tonight. The league is moving away from slow-footed post-up behemoths but it helps to have at least a few reliable bruisers with enough mobility and passing to not kill the defense. John Henson has some useful skills as a third big but if he’s starting for you, it’s not great. He finished 0-6 with only three rebounds and functionally no positive impact on the game.

Thon Maker is supposed to be the future answer for the Bucks but tonight he logged only eight minutes and just chucked the ball at the hoop while he was out there. It’s only one game, and he’s played a few more minutes most nights, but he’s only scored in double-digits once the whole season. Milwaukee needs more out of the center position in general, and Maker in particular.

Jason Kidd, HC

The Bucks coach seems to have figured out league politics better than game rotations. Boston has clearly benefitted from limiting the minutes of their stars. It’s allowed the team to bounce from game-to-game, but also exert their will at key moments in specific games. Kidd let Giannis play basically all of the second half until the 5:00 mark before pulling him out for a quick rest right as crunch time started. He looked tired by the end, even as he continued to attack.

I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Boston has been so good at the end of games. Irving and Horford rarely get left on the court to run their batteries all the way down and when they hit the floor with the closing unit they always look fresher than their opponents. The 4-6 minutes more that Kidd played Giannis and Kris Middleton makes it seem like you’re treating this as a “big game” but it almost certainly hurts the team over the course of the season, and may have hurt them on the night.

Blowouts

Last season I often joked that the Celtics were #BlowoutAverse because of their ability to come back from any deficit and throw away any lead. This season they’ve had the comeback part down, but had done a good job of maintaining comfortable leads once they establish them. The past week has seen a few big leads get frittered away; tonight the Celtics were up 20 in the third quarter before letting the Bucks back in it.

That’s not a good team trait and one that I hope doesn’t creep back in. Extending leads and finishing blowouts allows players to rest and young players to get a bit of experience. We haven’t seen much of Guerschon Yabusele, Abdel Nader, or Shane Larkin lately. If the game had been closed out in the third quarter they may have gotten some run.

]]>http://www.celticshub.com/2017/12/04/3-3-celtics-vs-bucks/feed/0Quick Thoughts: Celtics vs. 76ershttp://www.celticshub.com/2017/11/30/quick-thoughts-celtics-vs-76ers/
http://www.celticshub.com/2017/11/30/quick-thoughts-celtics-vs-76ers/#commentsFri, 01 Dec 2017 03:40:32 +0000http://www.celticshub.com/?p=63076It was a night for Boston’s veterans as two teams with ambitions to dominate the Eastern Conference for the next decade squared off. The Celtics were on the edge of a comfortable lead for most of the game, winning it 108-97, but Philadelphia made a few pushes and stayed within hailing distance. The Celtics move [...]

]]>It was a night for Boston’s veterans as two teams with ambitions to dominate the Eastern Conference for the next decade squared off. The Celtics were on the edge of a comfortable lead for most of the game, winning it 108-97, but Philadelphia made a few pushes and stayed within hailing distance. The Celtics move out to a league best 19-4 while the Sixers dropped to 12-9. Both teams would have signed for that before the season started.

Boston Celtics

Kyrie Irving has probably surpassed Al Horford as the best Celtic this season. He had 36 points tonight on 27 possessions. He continues a general trend towards more of a scoring guard role. He can still play as a traditional PG, as he did some against Detroit when they pressured him, but more of those duties are starting to fall to other players. That’s similar to how Isaiah Thomas was used last season, and we’re seeing Kyrie’s scoring outputs rise like IT’s did.

While Kyrie has been asserting himself, Al Horford played his best game in a few weeks with 21/8/5 and solid defense against a variety of assignments. When Irving and Horford play this well Boston is just hard to beat. Philly shot 50% from 3PT and won the rebounding battle but still lost by double-digits because of how the C’s two leaders were able to keep them at arm’s length on the scoreboard.

The third of the Celtics’ veterans to play well tonight was Marcus Morris. He scored 17 points on 6-11 shooting plus 5 FTs, but I thought the most impressive part of his play was his defense on Ben Simmons. Morris has a good history of defending LeBron James (as much as anyone can, at least) and when you spotlight his play against Simmons you get an indications of why. He’s not the quickest wing but against strong, skilled playmakers who want to get into the paint Morris can use his strength to give a cushion but not get trucked when the opponent gains momentum.

The flip-side was that Jaylen Brown had a rough night. He just seemed kind of out of it, missing his jumpers badly and turning the ball over four times. That’s two straight single-digit scoring nights after eight consecutive double-digit games. Brad Stevens went to Morris and Ojeleye to close the fourth quarter instead of Brown.

Jayson Tatum had another Jayson Tatum night, looking to fit in for most of the night but still getting to 15 points. His biggest shot was probably when he isolated on Amir Johnson and blew by him, but he also cashed in a few late buckets when the game wasn’t 100% over yet. His clutch shooting has been amazing.

Boston started very sloppy with 10 turnovers in just over 14 minutes. They cleaned that up and only committed six more over the final 34 minutes.

As seems to often be the case, Marcus Smart led the team in plus-minus. Stevens also called out Terry Rozier in his post-game comments for a rebound he took away from two 76ers bigs at a moment where the game had started to move in their direction.

Aron Baynes started but Daniel Theis got more minutes in the second half. The German rookie not only collected 8 rebounds and 3 blocks in just 14 minutes, but kept multiple possessions alive where he wasn’t credited with the board.

Philadelphia 76ers

It would have been nice to see Joel Embiid tonight. Philly had a choice of playing him yesterday against the John Wall-less Wizards or tonight against the Celtics. I guess they got the split they were playing for, which is fair on a back-to-back, and the win against a team they’ll possibly be fighting for playoff position. Still, after the Celtics held him to 4-16 in their earlier meeting it would have been interesting to see the rematch.

The Celtics are a tough match-up for Ben Simmons at this point. With so many options to throw at him, they can just make him work very hard. If he ever develops a jump shot this will change, but right now the C’s feel relatively comfortable with Horford, Morris, Brown, Tatum, Ojeleye, or Smart on him because of how all can give space and then cut off the dribble or contest at the rim. Personally, I think Simmons is a better prospect than Embiid, possibly even without factoring health (it’s close).

When J.J. Redick gets hot it’s scary, but in total he scored only 17 points on 17 possessions. When he and Bob Covington both struggle and Embiid is out, a defense can really collapse the paint against this team. That’s what happened quite a bit in the first half before Redick stretched them out with a flurry to start the second.

It was nice to see Amir Johnson on the parquet but Richaun Holmes should probably be playing ahead of him.

These two teams are going to face off in some late round playoff series in the not too distant future. They’re two of the youngest teams in the NBA with very similar age profiles who also happen to share two of the best 3rd party owned draft picks in the league. The Boston-Philadelphia history is a fun one; I’m glad that they’ve rejoined the NBA.

]]>http://www.celticshub.com/2017/11/30/quick-thoughts-celtics-vs-76ers/feed/5Disabled Player Exception Tricks and Timinghttp://www.celticshub.com/2017/11/30/disabled-player-exception-tricks-timing/
http://www.celticshub.com/2017/11/30/disabled-player-exception-tricks-timing/#respondThu, 30 Nov 2017 22:11:38 +0000http://www.celticshub.com/?p=63071I’ve been receiving a number of questions about the Disabled Player Exception (DPE). As it continues to be a topic where I also see a lot of misinformation, I’m going to try to explicitly cover how the team could use it beyond the simple, direct methods. Sign-and-Wait-and-Trade The DPE can be used to sign a [...]

I’ve been receiving a number of questions about the Disabled Player Exception (DPE). As it continues to be a topic where I also see a lot of misinformation, I’m going to try to explicitly cover how the team could use it beyond the simple, direct methods.

Sign-and-Wait-and-Trade

The DPE can be used to sign a player for a “rest of the season” contract for up to $8.4M. Both Bill Simmons and Danny Leroux have suggested in past podcasts that the Celtics should just go ahead and do that, even if there isn’t a free agent who is worth that amount. The idea was that they could then use that player in a later trade for a better player who wouldn’t be constrained by the rules of DPE acquisitions.

The Celtics have legitimately had a “problem” for the past few seasons that they don’t have a bad, mid-sized contract to use in trades. It’s a weird problem, but if a rebuilding team wants to sell a player in trade they normally want a younger player in return and/or a draft pick. The trade price is too high if you have to include a good player like Marcus Morris or Jonas Jerebko along with those young pieces. In that way, simply creating a “bad but tradable” expiring contract does make some sense.

However, new signings aren’t eligible to be traded for three months after their contract starts (other than sign-and-trades which are not allowed during the season) so the deadline to do this and be able to trade the player on by the February deadline has passed. It was an interesting idea that’s no longer possible.

Trade-and-Aggregate-and-Trade

The most common question I’m getting at the moment is around a similar idea of acquiring a player via trade into the DPE specifically to re-trade them in a bigger deal later on. A player signed with the DPE can’t be traded for three months, but a player acquired via trade could be aggregated and re-traded after only two months. The trade deadline is February 8 so if the Celtics use the DPE to pick someone up by December 8 they could include them in an outgoing package.

The reason I’m getting questions about this right now is that the Memphis Grizzlies are in turmoil and people are wondering if Boston could make an offer for Marc Gasol. I don’t think that this particular move is realistic, but the general idea isn’t crazy.

The problem with Gasol is that he makes a lot of money so Boston would still need to include multiple mid-sized contracts to make a match (assuming that Kyrie Irving, Al Horford, and Gordon Hayward are off the table). The sequence, timing, and parts are just way more complicated to be realistic for an in-season move. Even if it were possible to pull off, Gasol doesn’t fit into the team’s budget beyond this year, unless one of the other large contracts were moved.

While Gasol seems unrealistic, trading for someone like Corey Brewer with the hope of packaging him with a second contract like Marcus Morris in February could happen. As an example, let’s say the Celtics pick up Brewer and then experience a injury in the front-court. They could maybe package Brewer and Morris to get Robin Lopez.

Trade-and-Trade

The path that I haven’t seen discussed is trading for a player and then re-trading them without aggregating that new player in a larger trade. There’s no waiting period to trade on a player you received in trade if they’re the only active player you send out in the swap.

This path would allow the Celtics to wait to make any move until they’re ready to execute the complete sequence of move. Imagine that Boston targets a player with multiple years remaining on their deal or who currently makes over $8.5M and so isn’t eligible for the DPE. The team could use the DPE to acquire someone like Vince Carter and then trade them on along with a draft pick to get their real target. Again, as long as Carter is the only player the team sends out in the seconds trade, there is no waiting period. Carter makes $8M so standard trade rules would allow the Celtics to receive a $13M salary (Carter + $5M) in return (or a player earning 125%+$100k of the salary out the outgoing player if it landed the Celtics over the tax, which the team will not do this year). The list of players who become eligible for acquisition in this scenario is much larger than for the DPE directly.

Claim-and-Trade

There’s an unlikely middle-ground here where the team could claim a player and then trade them after a one month waiting period. This would work the same way as the above scenario where you aggregate the player in a second trade after two months, but it would require an eligible player with the correct sized contract being waived before January 8. This seems unlikely, though it’s not technically impossible.

The most likely path for using the DPE is still to just make a direct trade with it near the deadline, or to hold it and use it to sign someone who gets bought out just after the trade deadline. There are creative ways to do that which I’ve covered in a previous post. That being said, it’s worth keeping these other options in mind and watching the deadline dates as they go past.

]]>http://www.celticshub.com/2017/11/30/disabled-player-exception-tricks-timing/feed/0#1 Reason To Get Excited About Marvin Bagley IIIhttp://www.celticshub.com/2017/11/28/1-reason-get-excited-marvin-bagley-iii/
http://www.celticshub.com/2017/11/28/1-reason-get-excited-marvin-bagley-iii/#commentsWed, 29 Nov 2017 01:02:04 +0000http://www.celticshub.com/?p=63030At CelticsHub this year we will be focusing on a potentially fluid list of the top 5 prospects and track their progress throughout the season. Since the Celtics will only select in this year’s lottery if the Los Angeles Lakers fall between the 2nd and 5th pick, it doesn’t make sense for Cs fans to [...]

]]>At CelticsHub this year we will be focusing on a potentially fluid list of the top 5 prospects and track their progress throughout the season. Since the Celtics will only select in this year’s lottery if the Los Angeles Lakers fall between the 2nd and 5th pick, it doesn’t make sense for Cs fans to get familiar with more than a handful of top prospects. In the weeks leading up to the college basketball season we will be introducing some of the names you should start to get to know and the number one reason why you should get excited about them. Next up: Marvin Bagley III

Duke~Forward~6’11” 230 lbs (7’0.5″ wingspan)

Draft Range: Top 5

Ceiling Comp Group:Prime Derrick Coleman, Chris Bosh, Kevin Garnett

60 Words or Less: ESPN’s Jay Bilas referred to Marvin Bagley III as the “freak of freaks” in the PK80 final against Florida and he isn’t exaggerating. In today’s NBA landscape you need the freakiest freaks to compete at the highest level and Duke’s freshman forward checks all the boxes. Originally in the 2018 class, Bagley will certainly compete to go #1 overall come this June.

#1 Reason To Get Excited About Marvin Bagley: A Derrick Coleman Do-Over

The hardest type of player to evaluate in the modern NBA is the traditional power forward. He’s not quite big or strong enough to play center or skilled enough to play on the wing full-time. If you’re 6’9″-6’11 and not a pure perimeter player, you have to prove that you will be able to be able to slide up or down a position for stretches of the game or your value is limited.

Even in the positionless era, you have to be able to guard someone and as the saying goes, you are who you can guard. A generation ago, players like Al Horford, Chris Bosh and late-career Kevin Garnett would have been able to live comfortably in their natural habitats along side bruising centers that protected them from the nightly grind of battling in the paint. In 2017 Al Horford may be able to start a game at power forward but the vast majority of the time he’s going to finish it as the lone big man on the floor surround by perimeter players.

There are two types of power forward archetypes: the tree-stump bruiser and the lanky athlete. Duke’s Marvin Bagley III is very much later. At 6’11’, 230 lbs he is all arms and pogo stick legs (and hair). Bagley is a fantastic run and jump athlete and has already shown flashes of a devastating inside-out game. So far in his brief career at Duke he has been sharing the floor with a traditional center, Wendell Carter, Jr., and it’s clearly a comfortable space for him to operate in.

The question at the next level will be if he can operate as the lone big on the floor while providing enough offensive and defensive punch to compete the highest levels. There is still so much basketball to be played but I think the early answer to that is a strong YES! I feel even more strongly about his ability to operate at the lone big on the floor in the context of a team like the Celtics where there is size and defense all over the court.

I've now seen Marvin Bagley (3sticks) play for 10 minutes and so am confident that he would be a good fit with Kyrie/Jaylen/Gordon/Tatum.

Full disclosure, I’ve had a hard time seeing it with Bagley as a can’t-miss franchise changing prospect. A multiple-time all-star who can be a top-2 or 3 player on a championship team? Sure. Chris Bosh-like? Absolutely. But it wasn’t until the other day that his potential as a truly-special player hit me and it was sparked by a random highlight against Utah Valley University.

This steal and one-dribble-from-half-court-dunk triggered a highlight that all kids from Central New York who are born in the 80s have burned into their brain.

Marvin Bagley III is Derrick Coleman in 1988. Late 80s and early 90s Derrick Coleman is one of the most talented basketball players to ever walk the earth. At 6’10”, 230 lbs, Coleman was the best athlete on the court and a 5-tool offensive player. Before the injuries and the bloated contract (and body) and before he was the face of an underachieving generation, he was the original modern power forward. The basketball world marveled at his size, skill and physical talent the same way that we drool over unicorns in 2017. So then I started to look at clips of the two left-handed players side-by-side… and it got weird.

There were soul-crushing block shots

Soft touch tip-ins…

…and thunderous dunks in over-the-top.

Pick-and-roll finishes at the rim…

…and smooth lefty pick-and-pop jumpers.

Side note: DC was a stretch-big before it was cool and was a very good 3-point shooter, but for some context, here he is at 18 years old.

He wasn’t anywhere close to where he would end up as a shooter and although Bagley’s stroke is inconsistent, it’s much further along than teenage Derrick Coleman.

Then there’s the post-play. We have the lefty float finish…

…the up-and-under across the body…

…and the 1-2 bounce, right shoulder moves.

Oh, and let’s not forget about the passing. We have interior passing…

…and the fancy stuff.

This guys loves it.

Last but not least, it’s the freaky stuff. Humans this large shouldn’t be able to run like this…

…or handle like this.

Coleman was an all-star and a gold-medalist within the confines of traditional 90s basketball, but would have been even more devastating in today’s NBA where skill and versatility is king. Once his body filled out, he was more than capable of defending the interior and could hang with the great centers of the 90s for long stretches.

Bagley is more advanced that Coleman was at 18 (which is a generational difference) and I believe he represents a Derrick Coleman do-over. What would have Coleman’s career looked like if he came along 30 years later and not only benefited from the changes in the way the game is played but also in the way the NBA develops and takes care of it’s youth? I think Marvin Bagley III has the chance to show us what that would look like and for some lucky team and it’s going to look pretty damn awesome.

]]>http://www.celticshub.com/2017/11/28/1-reason-get-excited-marvin-bagley-iii/feed/3Boston’s big third-quarter pulls C’s past Indianahttp://www.celticshub.com/2017/11/26/bostons-big-third-quarter-pulls-cs-past-indiana/
http://www.celticshub.com/2017/11/26/bostons-big-third-quarter-pulls-cs-past-indiana/#commentsSun, 26 Nov 2017 06:36:52 +0000http://www.celticshub.com/?p=63022Boston won their second straight game in as many nights as they downed Indiana, 108-98. The Celtics trailed by nine at halftime but used a 37-16 third quarter to down the Pacers. Amazingly, It was the only quarter all night where the C’s outscored Indiana. Offensively, it was one of Boston’s best games of the [...]

]]>Boston won their second straight game in as many nights as they downed Indiana, 108-98. The Celtics trailed by nine at halftime but used a 37-16 third quarter to down the Pacers. Amazingly, It was the only quarter all night where the C’s outscored Indiana.

Offensively, it was one of Boston’s best games of the season. The Celtics shot 45/80 from the field, 10/25 from deep, and 8/9 from the line. The C’s may be starting to find their offensive rhythm after having to adjust their strategies due to Gordon Hayward’s injury.

This was a nice win for a short-handed Celtics team. The C’s were missing Jaylen Brown and Marcus Morris yet still pulled through. Boston continues to run the East at 18-3 while Indiana drops to 11-9.

Boston

Al Horford tied his season-high with 21 points, 5 rebounds, 6 assists, and 3 blocks. It was the first time in five games that Horford had scored in double-figures. Encouraging to see him get back on track offensively.

What a performance from Marcus Smart. The fourth-year guard finished with 15 points (7/8 FG), 6 rebounds, 5 assists, and 2 steals. This might’ve been his best game on offense all season. Smart did a great job of being patient with most his looks and only attempted two triples all night.

Kyrie Irving continues to play like the superstar he is. He put up 25 points and 6 assists while dropping in a few timely baskets in the fourth quarter. Irving’s game has risen to a new level in Boston that no one could’ve imagined. The key? Brad Stevens.

Jayson Tatum was tied for a team-high +12 alongside Horford and Smart. He didn’t do much offensively in this game, finishing with 11 points on 4/10 shooting.

Abdel Nader finished a team-worst -10 in only 13 minutes. Boston needs to give Jabari Bird a look with the minutes they’ve allocated to Nader.

Tito continued to stay hot after establishing a new career-high against Orlando. He finished the win with 17 points and 2 assists. Rozier knocked down 7/9 (77.7%) of his shots from the field.

If Smart and Rozier can continue to string together performances like this on offense, Boston will be tough to beat. The defense has been good from the bench unit but the offense has been mostly ice cold.

Free Yabu. That is all.

Indiana

Domantas Sabonis made a noticeable impact in the paint for the Pacers. He had 17 points and 7 rebounds and seemed to constantly be in the fray around the basket.

Myles Turner is certainly an impressive talent who could develop into something special. He’s a center who plays solid defense with range out to the three-point line. Turner finished the game with 19 points, 6 rebounds, and a block.

Lance Stephenson seemed to be making everything he put up in the first-half but he cooled off after the break. He ended up with 16 points, 8 rebounds, and 5 assists.

The Pacers are going to need Victor Oladipo to stay healthy if they’re going to be competitive in the East.